Will the Real Me please stand up?

I came across an interesting series of posts at Ironyca Stood in the Fire about gender-bending while gaming. I had to think about it but then I remembered way back making a Night Elf rogue. He didn’t last long, I don’t really know if he didn’t last because he was a Night Elf male, a male or a rogue. I then remembered making a Blood Elf male Death Knight. I definitely remember why he got the axe. I know it’s silly but I couldn’t stand the way he jumped. I like to jump and his jump was so embarrassing, I don’t know, this may have just been an excuse to delete a character I was uncomfortable with. I do know that in their short life I tended to treat the males very similarly to the way I treat my poor (not even in the picture above) female Death Knight. She tends to get upgrades only after everyone else does. She’s a Death Knight she wouldn’t like it if I babied her.

And that’s another thing, a thing that I have to watch around my family lest they become unduly worried about my sanity. I refer to all my characters as “she”. I’ll say things like she doesn’t fish, she’s too lazy. That character isn’t very friendly, or that one is friendly. Yes, I have attributed characteristics to them, not on purpose but as time passed I noticed that while playing a certain character I’d be more likely to respond a certain way. I have theories on why this might be. Some of these characters leveled in a ghost world, some of them leveled in the earlier days of my server. The Warlock was my last character to level to 80 before the Cataclysm and with the exception of about a week where she (oops, I) met someone in Hillsbrad Foothills and leveled together before they blew past me (I was taking my time to see the world one more time) she pretty much never interacted with anyone and she’s not very friendly. My Druid on the other hand was not my first character but there were still people leveling when she came through the world. She’s more likely to stop and buff someone, or throw you a heal while my Shaman is more likely to /rude you than to heal you.

I don’t know if this speaks more to my mental state or the difference of the leveling experience of my characters but if you run into any of them, you need a favor, ask the Druid, the Shaman is liable to /moon you.

And no, that’s not all my characters on this server. My Priest, Mage, and Death Knight didn’t make the cut and boy are they pissed.

Hey! Thanks for changing the email requirement to comment. Much appreciated 🙂

I find it interesting the way female and male characters are treated differently by other players. My main is a female Gnome rogue. I once made a male gnome rogue simply to test the question of whether other players would treat me differently in dungeons. I played him up to level 60.

To my surprise I was treated with much more respect as a male gnome than a female one. However, I do tend to take on the personalities of the characters I play, so it could have been something to do with that. Maybe I was more assertive as a male.

That is interesting, was your play style more assertive while playing a male causing the increase in respect or that fact you were playing a male. Also throw in the fact that while playing a female character almost everyone assumes you’re a male. All this makes me want to try another male character. Maybe I should start a male server, I could use a little more assertiveness!

I’m not sure if my play style was more assertive or any different as a male, but I do think I felt more confident, which might have helped the way I interacted with others. However the confidence could have been a result of being treated with a little more respect – so it’s hard to quantify. There was a definite difference though.

I haven’t found that while playing my female characters people assume I am male – in fact its never come up in any conversations I have had. I am female IRL btw 🙂

On my server everyone seems to assume I’m a male playing a female character. I can’t count the times I’ve been called “dude”, lol. I usually don’t pay attention but occasionally have just said please I’m a dudess.